“Are you being handed this championship?” - Horner’s unusual answer
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen extended his lead in the 2022 standings to 80 points, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, after storming to victory at the F1 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Verstappen started in 10th but took advantage after Leclerc, who was leading, lost pace after switching to hard tyres.
Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell (the podium trio) expressed their shock in the cooldown room that Leclerc was using hards.
Red Bull team principal Horner was asked on the Sky Sports broadcast: “Are you being handed this championship?”
He searched for his words before joking: “Are we live?”
Horner then said: “I can only focus on our performance.
“We did a great job today. We switched our strategy."
Horner: "We have got a chance now" with Leclerc on hard tyres
“We were due to start on the hard tyres," Horner said. "We switched it on the grid to deal with the ambient conditions.
“The soft tyre went much further than we thought. At that point, we committed to a two-stop.
“As soon as we saw Charles go onto the hard tyres, we thought ‘we have got a chance now’.
“[Sergio Perez] was fantastic on a different strategy. He allowed Max to get onto the back of Charles, to make the pass."